Fox News and QAnon exemplify symbolic decline through paranoid rejection of common facts

Evidence

The premier index of symbolic decline is probably, as Dean argues, Fox News: a frenetic propagation of alternate reality with chaotic signification and extreme agon. But think, too, of the recent metastasis of QAnon, the baroque conspiracy of a Democratic Party vampire pedophile cabal, supercharged not on institutional television but the dark web image board 4chan, fomenting absolute apophenic conviction among millions—those who refuse to be duped. Amid untrustworthy entities without means of discernment, the paranoiac position results in an impenetrability: impervious to facts, anathema to reason, lacking common language, there is no communication possible; as Dean cautions, “no amount of information, technology, or surveillance will compensate for the change in the symbolic.” — Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late…, 99

Categorization

• XREF: Concrete real-world index the reader can cite when naming immediacy features in actual works; connects to Dean as Kornbluh’s source. — connects to: Fox News succeeded because market demand for partisan news already existed — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 139